The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes - Volume 2, George MacDonald [8 ebook reader TXT] 📗

/> Hear me, O Lord, When the black night draws down upon my soul, And voices of temptation darken down The misty wind, slamming thy starry doors With bitter jests:-"Thou fool!" they seem to say, "Thou hast no seed of goodness in thee; all Thy nature hath been stung right through and through; Thy sin hath blasted thee and made thee old; Thou hadst a will, but thou hast killed it dead, And with the fulsome garniture of life Built out the loathsome corpse; thou art a child Of night and death, even lower than a worm; Gather the skirts up of thy shadowy self, And with what resolution thou hast left Fall on the damned spikes of doom!"

Oh, take me like a child, If thou hast made me for thyself, my God, And lead me up thy hills. I shall not fear, So thou wilt make me pure, and beat back sin With the terrors of thine eye: it fears me not As once it might have feared thine own good image, But lays bold siege at my heart's doors.

Oh, I have seen a thing of beauty stand In the young moonlight of its upward thoughts, And the old earth came round it with its gifts Of gladness, whispering leaves, and odorous plants, Until its large and spiritual eye Burned with intensest love: my God, I could Have watched it evermore with Argus-eyes, Lest when the noontide of the summer's sun Let down the tented sunlight on the plain, His flaming beams should scorch my darling flower; And through the fruitless nights of leaden gloom, Of plashing rains, and knotted winds of cold, Yea, when thy lightnings ran across the sky, And the loud stumbling blasts fell from the hills Upon the mounds of death, I could have watched Guarding such beauty like another life! But, O my God, it changed!- Yet methinks I know not if it was not I! Its beauty turned to ghastly loathsomeness! Then a hand spurned me backwards from the clouds, And with the gather of a mighty whirlwind, Drew in the glittering gifts of life.

How long, O Lord, how long? I am a man lost in a rocky place! Lo, all thy echoes smite me with confusion Of varied speech,-the cry of vanished Life Rolled upon nations' sighs-of hearts uplifted Against despair-the stifled sounds of Woe Sitting perpetual by its grey cold well- Or wasted Toil climbing its endless hills With quickening gasps-or the thin winds of Joy That beat about the voices of the crowd!

Lord, hast thou sent Thy moons to mock us with perpetual hope? Lighted within our breasts the love of love To make us ripen for despair, my God?

Oh, dost thou hold each individual soul Strung clear upon thy flaming rods of purpose? Or does thine inextinguishable will Stand on the steeps of night with lifted hand Filling the yawning wells of monstrous space With mixing thought-drinking up single life As in a cup? and from the rending folds Of glimmering purpose, do all thy navied stars Slide through the gloom with mystic melody, Like wishes on a brow? Oh, is my soul, Hung like a dewdrop in thy grassy ways, Drawn up again into the rack of change Even through the lustre which created it? -O mighty one, thou wilt not smite me through With scorching wrath, because my spirit stands Bewildered in thy circling mysteries!

Oh lift the burdened gloom that chokes my soul With dews of darkness; smite the lean winds of death That run with howls around the ruined temples, Blowing the souls of men about like leaves.

Lo, the broad life-lands widen overhead, Star-galaxies arise like drifting snow, And happy life goes whitening down the stream Of boundless action, whilst my fettered soul Sits, as a captive in a noisome dungeon Watches the pulses of his withered heart Lave out the sparkling minutes of his life On the idle flags!

Come in the glory of thine excellence, Rive the dense gloom with wedges of clear light, And let the shimmer of thy chariot wheels Burn through the cracks of night! So slowly, Lord, To lift myself to thee with hands of toil, Climbing the slippery cliffs of unheard prayer! Lift up a hand among my idle days- One beckoning finger: I will cast aside The clogs of earthly circumstance and run Up the broad highways where the countless worlds Sit ripening in the summer of thy love. Send a clear meaning sparkling through the years; Burst all the prison-doors, and make men's hearts Gush up like fountains with thy melody; Brighten the hollow eyes; fill with life's fruits The hands that grope and scramble down the wastes; And let the ghastly troops of withered ones Come shining o'er the mountains of thy love.

Lord, thy strange mysteries come thickening down Upon my head like snowflakes, shutting out The happy upper fields with chilly vapour. Shall I content my soul with a weak sense Of safety? or feed my ravenous hunger with Sore purged hopes, that are not hopes but fears Clad in white raiment?

The creeds lie in the hollow of men's hearts Like festering pools glassing their own corruption; The slimy eyes stare up with dull approval, And answer not when thy bright starry feet Move on the watery floors: oh, shake men's souls Together like the gathering of all oceans Rent from their hidden chambers, till the waves Lift up their million voices of high joy Along the echoing cliffs! come thus, O Lord, With nightly gifts of stars, and lay a hand Of mighty peace upon the quivering flood.

O wilt thou hear me when I cry to thee? I am a child lost in a mighty forest; The air is thick with voices, and strange hands Reach through the dusk, and pluck me by the skirts. There is a voice which sounds like words from home, But, as I stumble on to reach it, seems To leap from rock to rock: oh, if it is Willing obliquity of sense, descend, Heal all my wanderings, take me by the hand, And lead me homeward through the shadows. Let me not by my wilful acts of pride Block up the windows of thy truth, and grow A wasted, withered thing, that stumbles on Down to the grave with folded hands of sloth And leaden confidence.


COME DOWN .

Still am I haunting
Thy door with my prayers; Still they are panting
Up thy steep stairs! Wouldst thou not rather
Come down to my heart, And there, O my Father,
Be what thou art?


A MOOD .

My thoughts are like fire-flies, pulsing in moonlight;
My heart like a silver cup, filled with red wine; My soul a pale gleaming horizon, whence soon light
Will flood the gold earth with a torrent divine.


THE CARPENTER .

0 Lord, at Joseph's humble bench Thy hands did handle saw and plane; Thy hammer nails did drive and clench, Avoiding knot and humouring grain.

That thou didst seem, thou wast indeed, In sport thy tools thou didst not use; Nor, helping hind's or fisher's need, The labourer's hire, too nice, refuse.

Lord, might I be but as a saw, A plane, a chisel, in thy hand!- No, Lord! I take it back in awe, Such prayer for me is far too grand.

I pray, O Master, let me lie, As on thy bench the favoured wood; Thy saw, thy plane, thy chisel ply, And work me into something good.

No, no; ambition, holy-high, Urges for more than both to pray: Come in, O gracious Force, I cry- O workman, share my shed of clay.

Then I, at bench, or desk, or oar, With knife or needle, voice or pen, As thou in Nazareth of yore, Shall do the Father's will again.

Thus fashioning a workman rare, O Master, this shall be thy fee: Home to thy father thou shall bear Another child made like to thee.


THE OLD GARDEN .

I.

I stood in an ancient garden With high red walls around; Over them grey and green lichens In shadowy arabesque wound.

The topmost climbing blossoms On fields kine-haunted looked out; But within were shelter and shadow, With daintiest odours about.

There were alleys and lurking arbours, Deep glooms into which to dive. The lawns were as soft as fleeces, Of daisies I counted but five.

The sun-dial was so aged It had gathered a thoughtful grace; 'Twas the round-about of the shadow That so had furrowed its face.

The flowers were all of the oldest That ever in garden sprung; Red, and blood-red, and dark purple The rose-lamps flaming hung.

Along the borders fringed With broad thick edges of box Stood foxgloves and gorgeous poppies And great-eyed hollyhocks.

There were junipers trimmed into castles, And ash-trees bowed into tents; For the garden, though ancient and pensive, Still wore quaint ornaments.

It was all so stately fantastic Its old wind hardly would stir; Young Spring, when she merrily entered, Scarce felt it a place for her.

II.

I stood in the summer morning Under a cavernous yew; The sun was gently climbing, And the scents rose after the dew.

I saw the wise old mansion, Like a cow in the noon-day heat, Stand in a lake of shadows That rippled about its feet.

Its windows were oriel and latticed, Lowly and wide and fair; And its chimneys like clustered pillars Stood up in the thin blue air.

White doves, like the thoughts of a lady, Haunted it all about; With a train of green and blue comets The peacock went marching stout.

The birds in the trees were singing A song as old as the world, Of love and green leaves and sunshine, And winter folded and furled.

They sang that never was sadness But it melted and passed away; They sang that never was darkness But in came the conquering day.

And I knew that a maiden somewhere, In a low oak-panelled room, In a nimbus of shining garments, An aureole of white-browed bloom,

Looked out on the garden dreamy, And knew not it was old; Looked past the gray and the sombre, Saw but the green and the gold,

III.

I stood in the gathering twilight, In a gently blowing wind; Then the house looked half uneasy, Like one that was left behind.

The roses had lost their redness, And cold the grass had grown; At roost were the pigeons and peacock, The sun-dial seemed a head-stone.

The world by the gathering twilight In a gauzy dusk was clad; Something went into my spirit And made me a little sad.

Grew and gathered the twilight, It filled my heart and brain; The sadness grew more than sadness, It turned to a gentle pain.

Browned and brooded the twilight, Pervaded, absorbed the calm, Till it seemed for some human sorrows There could not be any balm.

IV.

Then I knew that, up a staircase Which untrod will yet creak and shake, Deep in a distant chamber A ghost was coming awake-

In the growing darkness growing, Growing till her eyes appear Like spots of a deeper twilight, But more transparent clear:

Thin as hot air up-trembling, Thin as sun-molten crape, An ethereal shadow of something Is taking a certain shape;

A shape whose hands hang listless, Let hang its disordered hair; A shape whose bosom is heaving But draws not in the air.

And I know, what time the moonlight On her nest of shadows will sit,